A proof of God's self-evidence

[OntheWindowStand]

Proto tell me if I'm missing his point but he doesn't believe in a supreme being I don't think

[Protoman2050]

Originally Posted by OntheWindowStand

How can you find something useful made by man in dealing with God???
And what do you consider a Christian? you claim to not pity then claim that you do that doesn't make sense

What I gathered from that post is that parts of the Bible make sense so you use them but if that is your slant when reading your not keeping in context with how it was written

I agree. The Scriptures --and practically any other book, holy or not-- stands as a whole, or falls as a whole; "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness..." (2 Tim 3:16, NASB).

Taking only what you like, and disregarding the rest, is not good theology, philosophy, or science.

[Protoman2050]

Originally Posted by OntheWindowStand

Proto tell me if I'm missing his point but he doesn't believe in a supreme being I don't think

Can you quote his post; I'm not sure who or which post you're referring to; guess I'm a little dense.

[OntheWindowStand]

The post where he describes his beliefs about the Bible

[midas77]

Originally Posted by Protoman2050

I agree. The Scriptures --and practically any other book, holy or not-- stands as a whole, or falls as a whole; "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness..." (2 Tim 3:16, NASB).

Taking only what you like, and disregarding the rest, is not good theology, philosophy, or science.

It is a very bad attitude towards knowledge. How can science and philosophy progress or even theology for that matter if everything is put into a can and taken as is without consideration and reconsideration. You will end up with a narrow mind.

It is said in philosophy that one philosopher is Great not because his ideas are Big but because he stands up in the shoulder of another philosopher. One must look into value of a statement as it is. Not everything that is said by a philosopher or a system of philosophy is true. The idea is to get the best out of each system and discard what is foolish.

[OntheWindowStand]

But when statements are based off of each other its impossible to take one and leave another. That is what books are, ideas and ideas based off of those ideas how can one idea be taken and not the ones before it?

[Zetetic11235]

Originally Posted by OntheWindowStand

How can you find something useful made by man in dealing with God???
And what do you consider a Christian? you claim to not pity then claim that you do that doesn't make sense

What I gathered from that post is that parts of the Bible make sense so you use them but if that is your slant when reading your not keeping in context with how it was written

It is difficult to quite get to the point you are trying to make in each of your posts, your grammar is a bit funky and im not sure you completely followed my last post.

I would welcome you to make an all enompassing definition of christians, but you will likely find it incomplete no matter what, the group is non homogenous. Mormans consider themselfs christians, catholics, gnostics(who are polytheistic and more akin th buddists), unitarian ect. All I can come up with is those who find value in the teachings of jesus and find them to be the most valueable techings of all possible teachings. That sounds a little shoddy to me, so I don't assume to lump all christians together.

Pity:Sympathy and sorrow aroused by the misfortune or suffering of another. I consider it a misfortune to have adopted a system of beliefs and never fully understand or question it due to cultural obligation, and I feel sympathy and compassion for those who are in such a state, because they are trapped. I shouldn't have said no one is to be pitied. But then again you shouldn't have assumed I pity christians.

The new testament has lessons that influence me and indeed all of western thought. It has lessons that I think would benefit man if we lived by their example. I do not consider myself to be a christian as I do not have faith in a god. I used to be a christian, then a pantheist, then an agnostic, now I lean more towards atheism as I realised that the concept of a god does not hold for me the answers I seek for I remain skeptical and am unsatisfied by the answers I get as far as the divine in the bible or any other religous text. The lessons of jesus, however, do strike me as important, as do the lessons off buddah and of the tao te chung whether there is divinity in them does not matter. I find value in considering them and their lessons, not as mandates, but analogies and metahpores that hold in them deep truths about human nature.

[midas77]

Originally Posted by OntheWindowStand

But when statements are based off of each other its impossible to take one and leave another. That is what books are, ideas and ideas based off of those ideas how can one idea be taken and not the ones before it?

You are making an assumption that everything that man writes is consistent with each other. SOme ideas are good and some ideas are stupid. Sometimes one argument does not follow another. One must be critical. Question everything. The mark of a philosopher is not much of on the answer but in asking the right question.

[Zetetic11235]

All ideas are connected within the mind. You take certain ones to be true, all people do such. When you discard those ideas which contradict each other as false, you excersise logic, or the law of non-contradiciton. Not all ideas are false, yet all ideas are based upon either things, the interaction of things or other ideas. If an idea is based primarily on one idea but draws on another false one, it is false either in whole or in part unless the same idea can be borne of another set of ideas all of which are true.

[Didymos Thomas]

I appeal to the God who is at once perfectly holy, just, merciful, and forgiving. And I don't see any true contradictions in the Bible as I see in the Qu'ran; all of those apparent contradictions are due to improper interpretation and thus can be resolved.

The Old Testament begins with contradictory accounts of creation.

GEN 1:25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
GEN 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

GEN 2:18 And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
GEN 2:19 And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

GEN 7:2 Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female.

GEN 7:8 Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth, GEN 7:9 There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.

In the New Testament, Luke and Mathew give contradictory geneaologies of Jesus.

If the Abrahamic religions' holy books weren't meant to be taken literally --which by I mean poetry is poetry, narrative is narrative, events are events, figurative language is figurative language, etc.--, why do they have abundant quotations implying the opposite?

First, you mischaracterize the book. The Old Testament is a compilation of different oral traditions. This is especially apparent in the portrayal of God - at one time a God who sits and has a meal with his followers, at other times a vicious God of War. Some scholars speculate the early Jewish god is a mix of two distinct deities - the calm God of the Jews already in Palestine, and the God of War Moses brings north from Egypt. The New Testament is also a compilation - the selections were politically motivated. Hence the inclusion of the Gospel of John and the exclusion of the Gospel Thomas.

As for taking the book literally: If we take the text literally, who decides which parts are figurative and which are not? Some argue that the creation story in Genesis is literally true and is not figurative.

I agree. The Scriptures --and practically any other book, holy or not-- stands as a whole, or falls as a whole

How can this be? What constitutes 'Scripture' in organize Christianity has been almost exclusively a political decision. The books were written by different authors at different times for different people.

Viewing the Bible as one unified book is as flawed as viewing a newspaper as one unified article.

But when statements are based off of each other its impossible to take one and leave another. That is what books are, ideas and ideas based off of those ideas how can one idea be taken and not the ones before it?

Then what happens when you publish two opposing works in the same volume? Consider the Epistle of James as compared to Paul's work.